


Until The Cat Got Her

by Shiskababy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-12
Updated: 2011-10-12
Packaged: 2017-10-24 13:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/263824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiskababy/pseuds/Shiskababy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Signless is caught and killed, the Dolorosa adjusts herself to slavery. After all, she still has her mind. They can't take that last part of her away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until The Cat Got Her

 

Before they were caught, before the Signless—son—was sent to be executed, they simply called her the Guardian. She needs no name other than that to do her duty. She even had stopped calling herself by her given name before the small group of disciples and the Signless are captured. When they are caught that simple title is stripped away; in is stead they give her a name that’s mockingly elegant. They think she doesn’t notice: she is the highest blood of the lot captured, hue so rare that she had to be treated differently.  

 

So they call her the Sorrowing One, the Dolorosa. She takes it. After His death could they really think that she could stand tall, to look upon the world with an indifferent glower? It’s true, she cries only when they look away but still they had the nerve to think they could try to shame her further. The Dolorosa already knows she failed in her duty. There is nothing that even the Empress can do that can make her feel lower when the smell of burnt flesh is still clinging to her mind. She grits her teeth when no one is around and thinks of passages that spoke of peace of mind.

 

The Dolorosa does not think of revenge when she’s waiting in a prison with irons that are already biting deep into flesh. What would it give her? Even if she manages to escape, even if she somehow kills the Empress and tortures her in the same way that the Signless died, even if she does all this she knows it would bring no satisfaction. The Signless may have died with anger in his heart but his life had been spent in preaching against such hatred. No. Even after his anger he would not want his life avenged. Besides, the Dolorosa knows, it would not bring him back. She doesn’t know where His honored Disciple has escaped to—she is not jealous of the younger troll—nor does she know of the fate of His faithful Psiioniic.

 

So she waits, skin dotted with mottled dark green patches. There are no other prisoners in her cell and that allows her to think. The Dolorosa thinks of how they were lured into a trap, how the Empress finally found them, how she was lured away so they could catch Him: the fact that her own freedom is gone is not relevant. Would a lusus grieve so? She doesn’t know. She just leans against the wall of her cell. She waits with an indifferent air.

 

When they bring her out from the darkness of her cell she says nothing. When the jailers bring her before a lean sea dweller with slashing scars across the whole of his face she says nothing. When the sea dweller—Orphaner—is given her chains she simply looks down. She ignores what they say. It means nothing. So she is to live on the sea, to work as a slave. That’s fine. If they think they can break the last few remnants of the Dolorosa’s dignity, she is willing to let them try.

 

-

 

The Orphaner seems to be content enough to ignore the Dolorosa. Whether he knows of her past is irrelevant. So what if he does? By now the only thing it would mean is that her price would rise higher. Not that she is treated any different than the lower blooded slaves. With her sign stripped, the Orphaner’s crew can’t tell if she’s rust-blooded or yellow-green. It’s almost ironic; the Signless always preached about a place where blood color didn’t matter. Those sorts of thoughts leave bitterness in her mind and bile in her throat.

 

She knows darkness, it’s a small comfort. The reeking stagnant air of the cargo hold remains her of the brooding caverns. Darkness, stagnant air…She can handle those. It won’t break her. The cloying body heat of the other slaves chained together is a different story.  It isn’t the warm comfort of the other disciples packed in the First Ship. No, the disciples packed themselves in willingly. The slaves did not. Some cry for a dead lusus or a lost moirail, some merely whimper, others say nothing at all. It’s the last group that bothers the Dolorosa the most.  She, herself, rarely says anything but her mind is always active but the silent slaves don’t seem to have even that last comfort.

 

No, she won’t let them take that last part of herself.

 

The other slaves in the hold fear the Orphaner—they whisper constantly about his contacts, how close he is to the Empress, how his kismesis often steals slaves for her own pleasure. The Dolorosa ignores these whisperings. She thinks of more passages, more scripture. She ignores the fears of her fellow slaves. If she could ignore the beatings of being caught and the condemnation of the Empress herself then the ramblings of a handful of fearful trolls should be nothing.

 

So she waits in darkness for whatever fate has in store. Her body is silent but her mind is still quick and agile. Every beating, every scrap of lost food… It doesn’t matter. She won’t let it break her. If she could handle the despair of knowing how He died and how He was shamed then this is nothing. She can handle it.

 

-

 

There is one night that Orphaner loses the slaves. Maybe the better term is that the slaves are stolen from the Orphaner but it doesn’t matter to her. One slave hold is the same as the next. It’s still cramped with the air filled with the cloying stench of fear. The slaves mutter new things and the irons around her limbs settle deeper in her flesh. She just closes her eyes and lets her mind wander. The Dolorosa still hears, however, about their new owner.

 

So it seems the kismesis showed her face after all. She wouldn’t pay it much attention until one of the new crew members enters the hold. She can only make out the vague shape of a male troll before he makes a gesture to her and she is led out.

 

Only now does the fear come. In the hold, she is anonymous, but out… The Dolorosa’s mind races back to the moment when He was dragged out of the prison to his death; burning irons, creaming hot metal and the cloying smell of burnt flesh. Her mind tries to balance out the fear while she is lead to the kismesis’s chambers.

 

For once, her mind doesn’t focus on the teachings.

 

-

 

She wants to think that the first night is the worst and that it won’t happen again. When she is led back to the hold, she tries to focus on Him again. It doesn’t work: the invasive thoughts of a stranger push their way back into her mind with little regard of the pieces of self dug up and thrown aside. She curls into herself as far as the irons allow her to.  “It didn’t matter, it will heal,” she mouths to herself. It’s just one way they try to oppress her. She’ll be fine if she just—

 

Vespertine.  The old, forgotten name makes her sit up straight. It’s not quite the same, the accent is strange but when the kismesis—no, the Marquise, the _Mistress_ —says the name it stings. It brings up images of thin fingers prying deep into places where they have no business being. It’s an elegant forgotten name and perhaps it doesn’t have the shameful connotations that “Dolorosa” has but the fact that the kismesis-Marquise knows of it… 

 

For the first time since His death the Dolorosa cries herself to sleep. Even if the slaves to her left and right say nothing to her, she is ashamed. She promises herself that it won’t happen again. Even if the kismesis-Marquise summons her again, she will be prepared.

 

-

 

The Dolorosa isn’t paying attention when the guards open the hold again, flooding light into the room. She blinks but keeps her head down. She doesn’t look at their faces. The Dolorosa knows it’s petty but maybe if she’s quiet and still they will look over her. They will ignore her. Vaguely she knows it’s the first time she actively tried to shrink away from them. It doesn’t matter.

 

A guard looks at her, briefly, but walks past to another female troll. The Dolorosa lets out a silent sigh. The Signless would not be proud of her for it but so repulsive was the time that she met the kismesis-Marquise that she couldn’t help herself. That doesn’t mean that she’s proud of herself for it. She could recover and she would. This is merely a stepping stone for the road to recovery.

 

“Not that one.”

 

Her eyes are drawn to the open doorway. The kismesis-Marquise is leaning on the door frame. The Dolorosa’s heart sinks. _Not now, not again, just go away. Go, go_ , she silently pleads.  The kismesis-Marquise doesn’t leave and—don’t, please don’t—she can feel the subtle prodding again. She feels her body relaxing as she stands up.

 

She draws attention to herself and, vaguely, she wonders why she had been hiding. There were worse fates than being a lover. Far worse, yes… That line of thought is cut off when the Dolorosa looks at the kismesis-Marquise again. She’s pretty sure that the Marquise is smiling.

 

“This one, you idiots,” the Marquise says with a nod towards her and the Dolorosa’s blood runs cold.

 

She stands still when the guards undo her bonds. She partly wants to stand there, ignoring everything else, but that would be completely idiotic. The guards would force her or kill her. They think little of her but the Marquise at least has some desire to keep her safe. So she makes her way towards the Marquise.

 

She’s barely aware of the other slaves but she vaguely thinks that they might be sighing in relief. Why would they do that…?  No—she knows why and she tries to push the thoughts of compliance away. When she finally gets to the Marquise, she kneels as well as she can before her. Her stiff muscles scream but she ignores them: the Marquise is looking down at her and she’s smiling. “Thank you, mistress,” she finds herself saying with forced sincerity. Her hands grab at the Marquise’s skirts as much as her irons allow her.  She’s almost disgusted with herself but she knows that she can’t help it. “I don’t like it down here.”

 

The Marquise’s smile only widens. “Oh, I know, darling. You don’t have to come down here anymore. You don’t have to worry about _anything_.”

 

She doesn’t believe that.

 

-

 

They are alone in the Marquise’s private quarters. The guards had left her with their captain with nary a single word. She watches them leave as the Marquise settles herself on the couch.  The Marquise’s chamber is just as she remembers it but she refuses to look around to confirm her suspicions.  She refuses to look at the one who confuses her so.

 

“Vespertine…I like that name. It suits you,” the Marquise says languidly. She imagines her stretching out on the couch with a confident smile. Still she doesn’t look.

 

If the Dolorosa doesn’t look, if she doesn’t make eye contact, if she doesn’t give any indication of discomfort then maybe the alien sensation of having someone else probe her mind will cease.  “Does it, mistress?”

 

She—Vespertine, her _dearest_ Vespertine—can guess that the Mistress flashes a brief smile of pride before answering.  “Of course it does, my darling… Ah, only if you weren’t being so stubborn then I would take off those cumbersome irons,” Mistress says with a sigh. “Only if…”

 

The last sentence is barely a whisper but she doesn’t feel the clawing fingers of manipulation. So she looks down at the irons around her wrists. Memories of the tangy smell of heated metal, of burning flesh, of a screaming troll in those irons came to her mind as she looked at the simple metal bands. The chains rattle as she quickly falls to her knees with her hands over her ears trying to block out the memory.  The Mistress wouldn’t go that far, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Why—

 

“Poor thing, come here.”

 

Almost as the words are said the old memories seem to stop. The Mistress is clever to use such a tactic. She’s almost impressive. The Dolorosa decides she hates her. Yet she cannot argue, so she goes to the Mistress’s couch. She sits at her Mistress’s side with no vocal complaint but every single one of her muscles twitch. At least the with the hot irons and the darkness of the Empress’s dungeons she knew exactly what was going on in her mind. They couldn’t take that away from her. They wouldn’t.

 

  

  1. Her Mistress leans in closer and she catches some scent of whatever blue bloods call perfume. Her Mistress runs her gloved hand over the Dolorosa’s shapeless garments. She can hear the unsaid ‘tsk’ in the way the gloves gently against her ribs through the cloth.   “Does Dualscar honestly starve you lot? You poor thing, all grit and nothing else—only he, I swear, would forget the basics. Too caught up in chasing the skirts of the Empress, I suppose,” her Mistress sighs.
  



 

She wants to say nothing but she knows that her Mistress wants a response. So she gives a simple, noncommittal answer, “I wouldn’t know, mistress.”

 

Moving one gloved hand to the side of the Dolorosa’s face her Mistress leans in even further and places her chin in the mess of her hair.  She breathes in deep and ignores the grimy scent of the cargo hold. “Spinneret,” she says off-handedly, “Spinneret or Mindfang if it’s just the two of us, darling. Do you understand that, my dearest Vespertine?”

 

She moves to say ‘yes, mistress’. It’s a simple enough rebellion. “Yes, Spinneret Mindfang,” her traitorous tongue says instead. Simple or not it seems that the Mistress isn’t going to stand for it.

 

“That’s my girl,” Mindfang says. “That wasn’t so hard.”

 

“It wasn’t,” says the Dolorosa’s voice. She tries to keep her own voice as emotionless and as toneless as she can. Mindfang doesn’t even allow that.

 

-

 

The Dolorosa sits on the couch alone. Mindfang has left her in her irons and a simple order of ‘don’t move, darling’.  Her throat is dry except with the acidic taste of bile deep down. Even if Mindfang isn’t right there her muscles refuse to even twitch. It appears Mindfang isn’t taking any chances this night.

 

She doesn’t have to wait long. The couch is facing the doorway and she can see Mindfang push her way into the private block.  She’s carrying a full bottle of wine in one hand—it seems she left her gloves somewhere, the Dolorosa notes this almost inane detail—and a cerulean colored scarf in the other.

 

“It appears that my own stock has been depleted lately,” Mindfang laments as she sets the bottle down on the table next to the couch.

 

She knows that she’s supposed to respond.  Her throat bitterly protests when she answers. “It’s a shame, Spinneret.”

 

Mindfang smiles to herself as if she didn’t know that she’s merely talking to herself. “Indeed, my darling. Indeed!”

 

She doesn’t know how Mindfang manages to get behind the couch so quickly, so silently. She only sees the room suddenly being tinted blue as the scarf is wrapped around her eyes. The Dolorosa would give an undignified yelp if she could. Of course, however, Mindfang doesn’t allow it. She allows only the exact opposite: her muscles unwind as she leans deeper into the couch. It feels _natural_.

 

“I’m going to take off your irons, darling, just stay as you are. Do you understand?” Mindfang suddenly whispers in her ear.

 

It feels as if her heart skips a beat but her voice is as steady as ever: only the right answer is allowed, of course. “Of course, Spinneret, I understand completely.”

 

The Dolorosa feels a feather light kiss on her jaw line as she sees the blurred outline of Mindfang’s body kneel at her feet. It just takes a moment to suddenly feel the air rushing to where the irons had been not a moment ago. She aches to kick out, to hit her with her new freedom but her mistress suddenly reaches out and places a single finger on the Dolorosa’s lips. “Be still, my darling, and after this is over you can have a rest.  However, I could simply send you back to the hold if you desire that fate instead. I suppose I could find another to sooth my aching breast like you.”

 

She thinks of words to respond with.  There is little doubt that Mindfang will allow her to respond with her own voice. Still… The idea of the stinking cargo hold is incredibly unappealing. It may be selfish but at least in her mistress’s chambers she doesn’t sense the despair of those all around her. The Signless would be ashamed of her. “Don’t,” she begins. “I will behave, mistress.”

 

When she says those words she suddenly knows it’s the beginning of the end: Mindfang didn’t tell her to say those words. She doesn’t have to see the details of her face to know that her mistress is grinning ear to ear.

 

Mindfang’s weight is suddenly on her. Her weight is seemingly doubled by the sheer number of petticoats and layers she wears but the Dolorosa doesn’t flinch.  When she feels her mistress’s sharp fingernails caress her cheek she doesn’t respond. She has to stay still and then, maybe, it’ll be over. She’ll get bored and leave the Dolorosa alone.

 

Her mistress chuckles at her resistance. Her voice is deeper now, heavy with the wanting. “My sweetest Vespertine, why would I ever leave you?”

 

“I don’t know—”

 

Mindfang doesn’t allow her to finish the sentence she’s forced to say. She presses her body even closer and kisses her. Her presence is as intrusive as always; she’s unwelcome but her traitorous body rises up from the couch to arch against her mistress’s. Mindfang’s laughing again. Whether it’s simply in her head or actually happening doesn’t matter.

 

It just doesn’t matter.

 

-

 

It’s less than a perigee since Spinneret first pulled her from the cargo hold. Vespertine, formerly the Guardian and formerly the Dolorosa, once again is used to her own name. Whether it’s ever been _hers_ she doesn’t know but _,_ well, nothing is ever certain these days.  If Spinneret says that her name is Vespertine? Then her name is Vespertine. That’s all there is to it.

 

Vespertine is used to being by herself in Spinneret’s private chambers these days; Spinneret trusts her now. There is no reason to try to escape. Where did she have to run? The small enclaves of the Signless’s followers are probably disbanded by now. They wouldn’t take her in and even if she did escape? The Empress would likely find her.  

 

It won’t happen, however. Spinneret will keep her safe.

 

-

  
She doesn’t know where the Marquise is when the strange troll comes barging into her chambers. Vespertine tries to reason with him. She tries to tell him that the Marquise isn’t there, that she’s not on her flag ship.  The male troll just glares down at her. Vespertine rarely speaks to other trolls without Spinneret around. She’s not sure what to say to the stranger. He, however, doesn’t give her a chance.

 

Once Vespertine closes the door he swings around. He apparently has pulled a knife from one of his sleeves. She stares at him as he lunges. Her mind screams at her to fight or step aside. She doesn’t.

 

He—her son—she suddenly misses him; misses the life before Spinneret, before the endless salt and waves. The blade is deliverance when it slides in-between her ribs. She doesn’t push it in deeper but she doesn’t need to. Vespertine watches the jade of her blood spill from the wound.

 

The stranger wenches the weapon free to stab her again. “Damn lowblood,” he mutters as he moves in to finish her.

 

All she wants to say is “thank you”.


End file.
